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Wednesday, 8 August 2012

M-City Redefines Tower Typology

Instead of taking the conventional approach of building upwards in a successive manner, Vladimir Plotkin and Roberto Meyer have designed a new tower typology – one that rises by stacking housing blocks on top of each other. The M-City project references the stylobate, stepped platform on which colonnades of columns are placed in classical Greek architecture. The entire building is pierced with triangular openings of multi-level atria and open-air courtyards, forming a silhouette of a symbolically rendered letter “M”.

The nine-story platform supports three 23-story triangular blocks spaced out by a 20 to 50 meters distance. The roofs of these three buildings support yet another couple of 19-story high triangular houses. Building new housing units “on the shoulders” of one another is a result of an unconventional way of building up mass.

Functionally, the development is a mixed-use one. The three-level underground parking garage plus the four parking levels above the ground form a powerful “technical belt” that also sports a number of shops and a hotel. Higher up, the stylobate is occupied by the offices that are grouped around the above-mentioned triangular atria; they are multi-level and, in the project, are covered with a glass grid and decorated with hanging plants. Out of the three towers of the first level, two are occupied by offices, and one – by apartments; both of the two top towers are apartment ones.

The stripped facades, with floor decks protruding as terraces give the whole building a more organic appearance, offering some disruption in a neatly organized composition of layers.